Drag Me to Hell - Van Tastik

What makes a song good? Andrew, our fearless leader, and I talked about that recently in our little video chat. He also asked me, what a song submission needs for me to include it in my playlist. I told him: It’s a matter of songwriting, production and mood. You’re more likely to be receptive to a certain kind of song, if you’re more open to it because of the way you feel, so that’s a pretty flimsy variable. But songwriting and production aren’t and they need to be good. Sometimes I can appreciate the “it’s so bad it’s good again”-principle, but that’s rarely the case.

Circle to Van Tastik. The American singer-songwriter/one-man-band/man with hat/mustache-man extraordinaire submitted his song “Drag Me to Hell” to my playlist. Listening to it, I was hooked instantly for three main reasons.

a) I’m a sucker for shedding, bluesy guitars. Though in this song the instruments definitely lean more towards the grungy, lo-fi spectrum, it still had the feel of the typical prime-dominante-subdominante structure in song.

b) I love a rough man’s voice. Especially when he can really sing.

c) Put that together and you have a Temple of the Dog/Soundgarden/Pearl Jam-feel.

You can learn more about Van Tastik here:

About the curator - Julia Maehner

Julia knows two main passions: Music and writing. From an early age she has been making music after a fashion. When she was 13, she sat herself down and decided: “I will be a music journalist. Because I love music and writing.” After a brief intermezzo in New York City working for the music boutique agency Girlie Action as a digital marketer, she moved back to Germany. This experience helped her build her know-how for her marketing client, the IT company .objective Software. She still writes for several German music magazines and is working on launching her own blog, amps on ears.